Not into Guilt Trips

Believers often fail to appreciate a principle critical to our pursuit of God. It’s this: God isn’t into guilt trips; He’s on a gift trip. Which means what? It means that everything we need has already been provided in Christ. Picture God’s outstretched hand, all His abundance there for the taking by anyone who will simply come to Him asking for it.(2 Corinthians 1:20)

We can have all we want of God, but on the other hand He will never force anything on us. God won’t brow-beat or coerce His children in any way into receiving what He wants for them. Given the fact that the gift itself (not to mention the Giver) should provide more than sufficient motivation to seek greater intimacy with God, resorting to the use of guilt to compel someone to take advantage of such abundance seems a bit ridiculous, doesn’t it?      

It’s true that we are obligated to build relationship with God.(Hebrews 6:12) But a sincere pursuit of God should stem from the fact that we are assured of all He has promised, not by a twisted hope of obtaining God’s blessings from the incentive of guilt, pressure or greed.(2 Corinthians 7:1)

Still, intimacy with God needs to begin somewhere. So it’s not surprising to see our motivation to spend time with Him springing from a somewhat distorted sense of obligation. And that’s an okay beginning. Yet there’s something wrong—something missing—if seeking to be in His presence doesn’t eventually become a pursuit of the heart rather than merely that of duty.

Excerpted from: Free from the Power of Sin: The Keys to Growing in God in Spite of Yourself

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